Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) compared President Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union to today’s China, stating in an interview with Breitbart News that he sees the nation as an “evil empire” and labeled President Xi Jinping a “Marxist.”
During a discussion on Thursday with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, Cotton focused on the threats China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) currently pose and will continue to pose. He referenced his book, asserting that the first chapter defines China in a way that echoes Reagan’s 1983 remarks about the Soviet Union.
Cotton stated, “In an obvious allusion to Ronald Reagan’s 1983 statement that Soviet Russia was an evil empire that scandalized civilized Washington, it was true. It’s still true about China today.” He noted that although China has embraced some Western economic practices, it remains fundamentally communist.
“And Xi Jinping is a thoroughgoing Marxist, there is no doubt about that,” he emphasized.
When questioned about the CCP’s ambitions to assert global dominance, Cotton remarked that they prioritize their party above everything else—state, society, and even God. He pointed to their treatment of their citizens as indicative of this desire for control.
“For 70 years, they have been carrying out a slow-motion genocide in Tibet,” he said, adding that “they are carrying out a fast-forward genocide against the Uyghurs, a religious minority in northwestern China.”
As highlighted in a recent article, reporting on China’s infrastructural expansions in occupied East Turkestan and Tibet, the Communist Party is severely oppressing the indigenous populations, including Uyghurs and Tibetans.
According to the report, “In East Turkestan, Xi has escalated persecution to full-scale genocide, including large-scale forced sterilization, slavery, and organ harvesting. In Tibet, cultural eradication through mass child abductions and campaigns to eliminate the Tibetan language and Tibetan Buddhism remains a constant threat to the population.”
Cotton also mentioned China’s stringent measures in Hong Kong, saying that the Communist regime has stripped away the long-held freedoms of its citizens there. He added, “This is what would happen if Hong Kongers ruled the world.”
He further criticized China’s One Belt One Road Initiative, remarking, “This is just one example of how they are trying to expand Chinese Communist influence around the world.”
